REXBURG — A Brigham Young University-Idaho instructor will no longer be teaching this year after she posted in support of the LGBT community on Facebook.

Ruthie Robertson, 22, was adjunct faculty for the past year at BYU-Idaho, where she taught political science classes on campus.

She said she planned on spending many years teaching at BYU-Idaho, the same university she attended as a student.

Those plans have changed. On June 5 she wrote an “official announcement” on her Facebook account showing her support for LGBT individuals and calling out the way her religious affiliates treat them.

“This is my official announcement and declaration,” part of her post said, “that I believe heterosexuality and homosexuality are both natural and neither is sinful. I will never support the phrase ‘love the sinner, hate the sin’ because that ‘sin’ is part of who that person is.”

Robertson’s post also decried the way some members of her religion, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, treat LGBT people.

BYU-Idaho is owned by the LDS church and is operated as part of the Church Educational System. The CES Honor Code states in part that BYU-Idaho and other church educational organizations “exist to provide an education in an atmosphere consistent with the ideals and principles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. That atmosphere is created and preserved through conduct that reflects those ideals and principles. Members of the faculty, administration, staff, and student body ... are selected and retained from among individuals who voluntarily live the principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Observance of such is a specific condition of employment and admission.”

Robertson said she wrote the Facebook post because of hurtful comments some students made towards other students who identify as being gay. She said she heard those kinds of comments when she was a student at BYU-Idaho, and as a teacher she couldn’t stand to hear that kind of talk.

She said that current church policies are often misinterpreted as condemning LGBT people, and that misinterpretation has seeped into student culture at BYU-Idaho.

“Most Christian faiths label homosexuality as a sin based on archaic writings. A few hateful verses in the Old Testament have led to hundreds of years of prejudice, hatred, violence, and pain,” her post said. “I realize that my views counter the current-day policies of the LDS Church, but I hope that over time the Church will come to see the harm these policies have.”

Later that night, Robertson says, she received a phone call from another school employee. He told Robertson he had been contacted by their faculty head, who had received an email about her Facebook post from one of Robertson’s former roommates.

That wasn’t the only contact. According to Robertson, a parent of one of her friends saw her post and sent BYU-Idaho President Henry J. Eyring an email advising him about what Robertson had said.

The call from Robertson’s co-worker told her that she was to meet with several school administrators the next day, including Associate Academic Vice President Rob Eaton and the Dean of the College of Language and Letters, Eric Waltz.

“The first meeting was pretty good at the beginning,” Robertson said. “Rob was trying to get to know me and my background. He wanted to know where my stance came from and why I felt the way I did. It was really positive for the most part, but at the end of the meeting it took a huge turn.”

Robertson said that from that point on she couldn’t get a word into the conversation and that the meeting ended with her being asked to rethink what she had posted on social media.

She said she was told to take a few days to reconsider her opinion, pray and come back with the right answer.

“A week later I got a call for another meeting,” she said, adding that at both meetings she was asked to remove the post from Facebook, which she refused to do.

Then came an unexpected phone call.

“I got a call at the end of the week saying that they had made a decision and they would let me finish the semester,” Robertson said.

She was reportedly also told that after the last day of classes, she was done teaching at BYU-Idaho.

“I knew when I posted it it would be kind of controversial,” she said, “but it never crossed my mind that I would lose my job.”

Robertson said she was angry upon learning that her career as a faculty member at the university had ended, but she eventually realized she had to accept what was happening.

“I could have taken the post down, but I chose not to,” she said. “This was my choice.”

She said that on the last day of classes for the semester she told her students what had happened and that she would not be returning to teach in the fall.

“Their support was overwhelming,” Robertson said. “I ended up getting a standing ovation, and a lot of students stayed behind asking questions, trying to understand what happened.”

Robertson said one of her students posted about her situation on the popular online forum Reddit, and the student gained the attention of Ryan McKnight, the head of MormonLeaks, an organization that was notorious for publishing official documents of the LDS church online last year.

McKnight then reportedly contacted several local and national media outlets, including The Washington Post and New York Times. Both contacted Robertson and expressed interest in sharing her experience.

Robertson said she wasn’t and isn’t trying to bash the university or her church, calling her actions “not an attack.” She said that the school administrators hadn’t done anything to offend her.

“The most important thing is that I wasn’t gunning for the school or the church,” she said. “I want people to know that these men were so kind during these interactions. Eric was more sad that I was leaving than I was.”

She said that she first wanted to be a teacher at BYU-Idaho to help make changes and create a more accepting culture on campus.

“Now that I’m fired I don’t have the opportunity inside to make that change,” she said. “I want people to realize that some in our church take our beliefs and views to extremes that cause harm to others. It’s out of love that I want these changes to happen.”

Brett Crandall, media relations and campus communication manager for BYU-Idaho, said Robertson would not be teaching next semester. But Crandall did not give any more information, saying “BYU-Idaho has a longstanding policy that we do not share personnel matters.”